America is the only English speaking country that pronounces Z as "zee"

In most dialects of English, the letter’s name is ‘zed’ /ˈzɛd/, reflecting its derivation from the Greek zeta, but in American English, its name is ‘zee’ /ˈziː/, deriving from a late 17th century English dialectal form.

Another English dialectal form is izzard /ˈɪzərd/. It dates from the mid-18th century and probably derives from Occitan izèda or the French ézed, whose reconstructed Latin form would be*idzēta, perhaps a popular form with a prosthetic vowel.

Other languages spell the letter’s name in a similar way: zeta in Italian, Spanish and Icelandic (no longer part of its alphabet but found in personal names), zäta in Swedish, zæt in Danish,zet in Dutch, Polish, Romanian and Czech, Zett in German (capitalised as noun), zett in Norwegian, zède in French, and zê in Portuguese.

Several languages lacking /z/ as phoneme render it as /ts/~/dz/, e.g. zeta /tsetɑ/ or /tset/ in Finnish. In Mandarin Chinese pinyin the name of the letter Z is pronounced [tsɨ], although the English ‘zed’ and American English ‘zee’ have become very common.

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The US plan to convince North Korean pilots to defect for a cash reward was called "Operation Moolah"

Operation Moolah was a United States Air Force (USAF) effort during the Korean War to obtain through defection a fully capable Soviet MiG-15 jet fighter. Communist forces introduced the MiG-15 to Korea on November 1, 1950. USAF pilots reported that the performance of theMiG-15 was superior to all United Nations (U.N.) aircraft, including the USAF’s newest plane, the F-86 Sabre. The operation focused on influencing Communist pilots to defect to South Korea with a MiG for a financial reward. The success of the operation is disputable since no Communist pilot defected before the armistice was signed on July 27, 1953. However, on September 21, 1953, North Korean pilot LieutenantNo Kum-Sok flew his MiG-15 to the Kimpo Air Base, South Korea, unaware of Operation Moolah.

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This fish causes hallucinations when eaten and were used as a recreational drug by the Roman Empire.

Salema porgy, is a species of bream, recognisable by the golden stripes that run down the length of its body, and which can cause hallucinations when eaten. It is relatively common off the coasts of South Africa, Tenerife, Malta and Cyprus, but has been occasionally been found as far north as Great Britain.

Sarpa salpa was reportedly consumed as a recreational drug during the time of the Roman empire. The fish became widely known for its psychoactivity following widely publicized articles in 2006, when two men ingested it at a Mediterranean restaurant and began to perceive many auditory and visual hallucinogenic effects. These hallucinations, described as frightening, were reported to have occurred minutes after the fish was ingested and had a total duration of 36 hours.

Ichthyoallyeinotoxism, or hallucinogenic fish poisoning is common in other species of fish but not in Sarpa salpa, which is not normally psychoactive. It is, in fact, often served as a dish at seafood restaurants in the Mediterranean area. It is presently believed that the fish ingests a particular algae or phytoplankton which renders it hallucinogenic. The effects described are similar to those of indole tryptaminepsychedelics.

Gilbert N. Lewis was nominated for the Nobel Prize 35 times, but he never won.

Gilbert N. Lewis is known for the discovery of the covalent bond and his concept of electron pairs; his Lewis dot structures and other contributions to valence bond theory have shaped modern theories of chemical bonding. Lewis has successfully contributed to thermodynamics, photochemistry, and isotope separation, and is also known for his concept of acids and bases.

G. N. Lewis was born in 1875 in Weymouth, Massachusetts. After receiving his PhD in chemistry from Harvard University and studying abroad in Germany and the Philippines, Lewis moved to California to teach chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley. Several years later, he became the Dean of the college of Chemistry at Berkeley, where he spent the rest of his life. As a professor, he incorporated thermodynamic principles into the chemistry curriculum and reformed chemical thermodynamics in a mathematically rigorous manner accessible to ordinary chemists. He began measuring the free energy values related to several chemical processes, both organic and inorganic.

In 1916, he also proposed his theory of bonding and added information about electrons in the periodic table of the elements. In 1933, he started his research on isotope separation. Lewis worked with hydrogen and managed purify of heavy water. He then came up with his theory of acids and bases, and did work in photochemistry during the last years of his life. In 1926, Lewis coined the term “photon” for the smallest unit of radiant energy. He was a brother in Alpha Chi Sigma, the professional chemistry fraternity.

Though he was nominated 35 times, G. N. Lewis never won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. On March 23, 1946, Lewis was found dead in his Berkeley laboratory where he had been working with hydrogen cyanide; many postulated that the cause of his death was suicide. After Lewis’ death, his children followed their father’s career in chemistry.

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The harmonica John Lennon used during "Love me Do" was shoplifted.

It was on the 4 September session that, according to McCartney, Martin suggested using a harmonica for the Love Me Do song. However, Lennon’s harmonica part was present on the Anthology 1 version of the song recorded during the 6 June audition with Pete Best on drums. Also, Martin’s own recollection of this is different, saying: “I picked up on ‘Love Me Do’ because of the harmonica sound”, adding: “I loved wailing harmonica — it reminded me of the records I used to issue of Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee. I felt it had a definite appeal.” Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee would be an influence on Bob Dylan, who, in turn, would later influence the Beatles.

Lennon had learned to play a chromatic harmonica that his Uncle George (late husband of his Aunt Mimi) had given to him as a child. But the instrument being used at this time was one stolen by Lennon from a music shop in Arnhem, the Netherlands, in 1960, as the Beatles first journeyed to Hamburg by road. Lennon would have had this with him at the EMI audition on 6 June as Bruce Channel’s “Hey Baby”, with its harmonica intro, and a hit in the UK in March 1962, was one of the thirty three songs the Beatles had prepared (although only four were recorded: “Bésame Mucho”; “Love Me Do”; “P.S. I Love You” and “Ask Me Why”, of which only “Bésame Mucho” and “Love Me Do” survive and appear on Anthology 1). Brian Epstein had also booked American Bruce Channel to top a NEMS Enterprises promotion at New Brighton’s Tower Ballroom, in Wallasey on 21 June 1962, just a few weeks after “Hey Baby” had charted, and placed the Beatles a prestigious second on the bill. Lennon was so impressed that night with Channel’s harmonica player, Delbert McClinton, that he later approached him for advice on how to play the instrument. Lennon makes reference also to Frank Ifield’s “I Remember You” and its harmonica intro, a huge number one hit in the U.K July 1962, saying: “The gimmick was the harmonica. There was a terrible thing called “I Remember You”, and we did those numbers; and we started using it on “Love Me Do” just for arrangements”. The harmonica was to become a feature of the Beatles’ early hits such as “Love Me Do”, “Please Please Me” and “From Me to You” as well as various album tracks. Paul Mc­Cartney recalled, “John expected to be in jail one day and he’d be the guy who played the harmonica.” 

Martin came very close to issuing “How Do You Do It?” as the Beatles’ first single (it would also re-appear as a contender for their second single) before settling instead on “Love Me Do”, as a mastered version of it was made ready for release and which still exists in EMI’s archives. Martin commented later: “I looked very hard at ‘How Do You Do It?’, but in the end I went with ‘Love Me Do’, it was quite a good record.” McCartney would remark: “We knew that the peer pressure back in Liverpool would not allow us to do ‘How Do You Do It’.”

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The Democratic Republic of Congo is the world's largest predominantly French speaking country

French is the official language of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is meant to be an ethnically neutral language, to ease communication among the many different ethnic groups of the Congo.

Approximately 242 languages are spoken in the country, but only four have the status of national languages: Kikongo (Kituba), Lingala,Tshiluba and Swahili. Although some people speak these regional, or trade languages, as first languages, most of the population speak them as a second language after their own tribal language. Primary education tends to be in the national Bantu language of the region, and secondary education, and beyond, tends to be in French. Lingala was made the official language of the colonial army, the “Force Publique” under Belgian colonial rule. But since the recent rebellions, a good part of the army in the East also uses Swahili where it is prevalent. When the country was a Belgian colony, it had already instituted teaching and use of the four national languages in primary schools, making it one of the few African nations to have had literacy in local languages during the European colonial period. During the colonial period both Dutch and French were the official languages but French was by far the most important. About 24,320,000 people of DRC speak French either as a first or second language.

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An Egyptian special forces unit got confused for terrorists while attempting to storm a hijacked plane, 15 were killed

In 1978, Egyptian Army Special Forces were dispatched to Larnaca International Airport, Larnaca, Cyprus in response to the hijacking of a Cyprus Air passenger aircraft by operatives of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine(PFLP). The operation was organized hastily, and Egyptian authorities failed to notify Cyprus of the arrival of the unit. As the Egyptian commandos approached the plane on the tarmac, they were mistaken by the Cyprus security forces as terrorist reinforcements. Cypriot security forces opened fire on the approaching Egyptian SF members, who were without nearby cover. The firefight cost the lives of 15 members of the 79 members of the Egyptian commando force sent, however there were no reported Cypriot fatalities. The aftermath of the failed incident resulted in the creation of Task Force 777.

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In the 1600s girls in London were attacked by 2 guys who would spank them with a rod, shout "Spanko!" and run away

Two sexual attackers in London and the nearby village of Hackney were known as ”Whipping Tom“. Both would attack women walking alone and beat them on the buttocks.

While there is some evidence that an earlier attacker in around 1672 was also nicknamed “Whipping Tom” and carried out similar attacks on women, the earliest recorded attacker of this nature was active in central London in 1681. He would approach unaccompanied women in alleys and courtyards and spank them on the buttocks, before fleeing. The inability of the authorities to apprehend the offender caused complaints about the ineffectiveness of London’s constabulary, and prompted vigilante patrols in the affected areas. A local haberdasherand his accomplice were captured and tried for the attacks.

A second attacker nicknamed “Whipping Tom” was active in late 1712 in Hackney, then a rural village outside London. This attacker would approach lone women in the countryside, and beat them on the buttocks with a birch rod. Around 70 attacks were carried out before a local man named Thomas Wallis was captured and confessed to the attacks.

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Nestle was accused in Canada for price fixing their competitors, Mars and Hershey

In Canada, the Competition Bureau raided the offices of Nestlé Canada (along with those of Hershey Canada Inc. and Mars Canada Inc) in 2007 to investigate the matter of price fixing of chocolates. It is alleged that executives with Nestlé, the maker of KitKat, Coffee Crisp and Big Turk, colluded with competitors in Canada to inflate prices.

The Bureau alleged that competitors’ executives met in restaurants, coffee shops and at conventions and that Nestlé Canada CEO, Mr. Leonidas once handed a competitor an envelope stuffed with his company’s pricing information, saying: “I want you to hear it from the top – I take my pricing seriously.”

Nestlé and the other companies were subject to class-action lawsuits for price fixing after the raids were made public in 2007. “Nestlé recently agreed to pay $9-million, without admitting liability, in a settlement subject to court approval in the new year. But a massive class-action continues in the United States”.

Nestlé CEO Robert Leonidas is under threat of a criminal charge for his role in the price fixing of chocolates in Canada when he was at the helm of Nestlé Canada from 2006 to 2010.

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Croissants are not French, they are Austrian

The Kipferl, ancestor of the croissant, has been documented in Austria going back at least as far as the 13th century, in various shapes. The Kipferl can be made plain or with nut or other fillings (some consider the rugelach a form of Kipferl).

The “birth” of the croissant itself – that is, its adaptation from the plainer form of Kipferl, before the invention of Viennoiserie – can be dated with some precision to at latest 1839 (some say 1838), when an Austrian artillery officer, August Zang, founded a Viennese bakery (“Boulangerie Viennoise”) at 92, rue de Richelieu in Paris. This bakery, which served Viennese specialities including the Kipferl and the Vienna loaf, quickly became popular and inspired French imitators (and the concept, if not the term, viennoiserie, a 20th-century term for supposedly Vienna-style pastries). The French version of the Kipferl was named for its crescent (croissant) shape.

Alan Davidson, editor of the Oxford Companion to Food, found no printed recipe for the present-day croissant in any French recipe book before the early 20th century; the earliest French reference to a croissant he found was among the “fantasy or luxury breads” in Payen’s Des substances alimentaires, 1853. However, early recipes for non-laminated croissants can be found in the nineteenth century and at least one reference to croissants as an established French bread appeared as early as 1850.

Zang himself returned to Austria in 1848 to become a press magnate, but the bakery remained popular for some time after, and was mentioned in several works of the time: “This same M. Zank…founded around 1830, in Paris, the famous Boulangerie viennoise”. Several sources praise this bakery’s products: “Paris is of exquisite delicacy; and, in particular, the succulent products of the Boulangerie Viennoise”; ”which seemed to us as fine as if it came from the Viennese bakery on the rue de Richelieu”.

By 1869, the croissant was well established enough to be mentioned as a breakfast staple, and in 1872, Charles Dickens wrote (in his periodical All the Year Round) of:

the workman’s pain de ménage and the soldier’s pain de munition, to the dainty croissant on the boudoir table

The puff pastry technique which now characterizes the croissant was already mentioned in the late 17th century, when La Varenne’s Le Cuisinier françois gave a recipe for it in the 1680 – and possibly earlier – editions. It was typically used, not on its own, but for shells holding other ingredients (as in a vol-au-vent). But it does not appear to be mentioned in relation to the croissant until the twentieth century.

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Some people steal garden gnomes, take them traveling, and then return the gnome, with photos, back to the owner

The travelling gnome prank is the practice of returning a garden gnome ”to the wild”. It involves stealing a gnome, taking it on a trip, and photographing it at famous landmarks, with the photos being returned to the owner.

There are many clubs and organizations dedicated to the prank. The best-known of these is the Garden Gnome Liberation Front.

The tradition was first recorded in Australia in the 1980s by Phil Tibble. The following blurb appeared in the Regular Shorts feature of the Sydney Morning Herald of September 24, 1986: ‘An Eastern suburbs gnome-owner was distressed when she discovered her gnome had been stolen at the weekend. A note was found in its place: “Dear mum, couldn’t stand the solitude any longer. Gone off to see the world. Don’t be worried, I’ll be back soon. Love Bilbo xxx.”

It was popularized by several films, including the 2001 movie Amélie, where it was featured as a subplot. It appeared as a prank in the 1994 film, Threesome, starring Lara Flynn Boyle, Stephen Baldwin and Josh Charles where a garden gnome is “liberated” and taken on a road trip.

In The Sims 3, the Mysterious Mr. Gnome is a special item that is randomly found in the catacombs, while fishing, when sending ore or gems to their respective refiners, or as an ‘acquisition’ from being promoted in the thief career track. The Mysterious Mr. Gnome is known to travel around the player’s sim’s property (although he is never seen in the act of moving from one place to another), and to do things such as watch TV, float, and do hand stands. If a picture is taken while a Mysterious Mr. Gnome is in the Sim’s inventory, it will appear in the classic “travelling gnome” pose.

In 2004 it was featured in the viral marketing campaign Where is my Gnome? used by online travel agency Travelocity. Since then, the “Roaming Gnome” has become Travelocity’s mascot.

In the 2007 game Half-Life 2: Episode Two, an Achievement requires the player to carry a Garden Gnome throughout almost all of the game and place him into a rocket which in turn would launch him into space. Doing this will unlock the “Little Rocket Man” achievement on both the Xbox 360 and the PC. Another Valve game, Left 4 Dead 2 used the same gnome model for a similar achievement.

In 2008, punk cabaret duo The Dresden Dolls released the song “Night Reconnaissance”. The song is about the lead singer, Amanda Palmer, recalling how she’d steal Garden Gnomes from middle class neighbourhoods as retribution for how she was treated in high school. The Garden Gnomes are then used as actors in a play staged in a barn loft.

Television storylines involving travelling garden gnomes have appeared in soap operas including both Coronation Street (Norris Cole pranking Derek Wilton) and Neighbours (Dr Karl Kennedy pranking Marlene Kratz).

In the 2011 first-person-shooter Battlefield 3, a gnome can be found hidden on several of the multiplayer and singleplayer maps.

Churn Labs, a firm which makes software for mobile devices, has created a game app named Gnonstop Gnomes for Android and iOS. It lets users attach a virtual gnome to travel photographs and use GPS to share the gnome with friends as users travel.

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Frank Hayes was a jockey who died in the midst of a race, but won anyway

Frank Hayes (1888–1923) was a jockey who, in 1923, suffered a fatal heart attack in the midst of a race at Belmont Park in New York. His horse, a 20-1 outsider called Sweet Kiss, finished and won the race with his lifeless body still atop, making him the first, and thus far, only, jockey to win a race after death.

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Since 1934, there have only been two voice actors to voice Donald Duck

Many of Donald’s films made after the war recast the duck as the brunt of some other character’s pestering. Donald is repeatedly attacked, harassed, and ridiculed by his nephews, by the chipmunks Chip ‘n’ Dale, or by other characters such as Humphrey the Bear, Spike the Bee, Bootle Beetle, the Aracuan Bird, Louie the Mountain Lion, or a colony of ants. In effect, much like Bugs Bunny cartoons from Warner Bros. the Disney artists had reversed the classic screwball scenario perfected by Walter Lantz and others in which the main character is the instigator of these harassing behaviors, rather than the butt of them. The short ‘Clown Of The Jungle’ (1947) very much feels like either a Daffy Duck or a Woody Woodpecker cartoon.

The post-war Donald also starred in educational films, such as Donald in Mathmagic Land and How to Have an Accident at Work (both 1959), and made cameos in various Disney projects, such as The Reluctant Dragon (1941) and the Disneyland television show (1959). For this latter show, Donald’s uncles Ludwig von Drake (1961) and Scrooge McDuck (1967) were then created in animation.

Clarence Nash voiced Donald for the last time in Mickey’s Christmas Carol (1983), making Donald the only character in the film to be voiced by his original actor. Since Nash’s death in 1985, Donald’s voice has been provided by Tony Anselmo, who was mentored by Nash. Anselmo’s voice is heard for the first time in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?. In this movie, Donald has a piano duel scene with his Warner Brothers counterpart and rival Daffy Duck voiced by Mel Blanc. Donald has since appeared in several different television shows and (short) animated movies. He played roles in The Prince and the Pauper and made a cameo appearance in A Goofy Movie.

Donald had a rather small part in the animated television series DuckTales. There, Donald joins the Navy, and leaves his nephews Huey, Dewey, and Louie with their Uncle Scrooge, who then has to take care of them. Donald’s role in the overall series was fairly limited, as he only ended up appearing in a handful of episodes. Some of the stories in the series were loosely based on the comics by Carl Barks.

Donald made some cameo appearances in Bonkers, before getting his own television show Quack Pack. This series featured a modernized Duck family. Donald was no longer wearing his sailor suit and hat, but a Hawaiian shirt. Huey, Dewey, and Louie now are teenagers, with distinct clothing, voices, and personalities. Daisy Duck has lost her pink dress and bow and has a new hairdo. Oddly enough, no other family members, besides Ludwig von Drake, appear in Quack Pack, and all other Duckburg citizens are humans, and not dogs.

He made a comeback as the star of the “Noah’s Ark” segment of Fantasia 2000, as first mate to Noah. Donald musters the animals to the Ark and attempts to control them. He tragically believes that Daisy has been lost, while she believes the same of him, but they are reunited at the end. All this to Edward Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance Marches 1–4.

In an alternate opening for the 2005 Disney film Chicken Little, Donald would have made a cameo appearance as “Ducky Lucky”. This scene can be found on the Chicken Little DVD.

Donald also played an important role in Mickey Mouse Works and House of Mouse. In the latter show, he is the co-owner of Mickey’s night club. He is part of the ensemble cast of classic characters in the TV show Mickey Mouse Clubhouse as well. He also appears in the new 3-minute Mickey Mouse TV shorts for Disney Channel.

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Peacock feathers are actually brown, but have microscopic structures that interfere with light that make the bright iridescence.

Structural coloration is the production of colour by microscopically structured surfaces, sometimes also called schemochromes, fine enough to interfere with visible light, sometimes in combination with pigments: for example, peacock tail feathers are pigmented brown, but their structure makes them appear blue, turquoise, and green, and often they appear iridescent.

Structural coloration was first observed by English scientists Robert Hooke and Isaac Newton, and its principle – wave interference – explained by Thomas Young a century later. Young correctly described iridescence as the result of interference between reflections from two (or more) surfaces of thin films, combined with refraction as light enters and leaves such films. The geometry then determines that at certain angles, the light reflected from both surfaces adds (interferes constructively), while at other angles, the light subtracts. Different colours therefore appear at different angles.

In animals such as on the feathers of birds and the scales of butterflies, interference is created by a range of photonic mechanisms, including diffraction gratings, selective mirrors, photonic crystals, crystal fibres, matrices of nanochannels and proteins that can vary their configuration. Many of these mechanisms correspond to elaborate structures visible by electron microscopy. In plants, brilliant colours are produced by structures within cells. The most brilliant blue coloration known in any living tissue is found in the marble berries of Pollia condensata, where a spiral structure of cellulose fibrils produces Bragg’s law scattering of light.

Structural coloration has potential for industrial, commercial and military application, with biomimetic surfaces that could provide brilliant colours, adaptive camouflage, efficient optical switches and low-reflectance glass.

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Basketball player Latrell Sprewell refused a $21-million salary arguing it would not be enough to feed his children.

During that regular season, Sprewell became part of the league’s highest-scoring trio, alongside Kevin Garnett and point guard Sam Cassell. Sprewell helped the team earn the first seed in the Western Conference playoffs, but Minnesota’s franchise-record playoff run drew to an end when they were defeated by the Lakers in 6 games in the Western Conference Finals. Sprewell finished second in team scoring, pacing at 19.9 ppg behind Garnett’s 24.0 ppg.

On October 31, 2004, the Minnesota Timberwolves offered Sprewell a 3-year, $21 million contract extension, substantially less than what his then-current contract paid him. Claiming to feel insulted by the offer, he publicly expressed outrage, declaring, “I have a family to feed … If Glen Taylor wants to see my family fed, he better cough up some money. Otherwise, you’re going to see these kids in one of those Sally Struthers commercials soon.” He declined the extension, and, having once more drawn the ire of fans and sports media, had the worst season of his career in the final year of his contract. In the summer of 2005, the Nuggets, Cavs, and Rockets all expressed interest in signing Latrell Sprewell, but no agreements were reached.

One month into the 2005-06 season and without a contract, Sprewell’s agent, Bob Gist, said his client would rather retire than play for the NBA minimum salary, telling Sports Illustrated, “Latrell doesn’t need the money that badly. To go from being offered $7 million to taking $1 million, that would be a slap in the face.” Several days later, Gist said that Sprewell planned to wait until “teams get desperate” around the trade deadline in February, and then sign with a contending team (an eventuality that never materialized). Gist said that Sprewell would not be interested in signing for any team’s $5 million mid-level exception, calling that amount “a level beneath which [Sprewell] would not stoop or kneel!”

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Sir Ranulph Fiennes, has run 7 marathons, on 7 consecutive days, in 7 continents after a heart attack and bypass operation

Ranulph Fiennes, is a British adventurer and holder of several endurance records. He is also a prolific writer.

Despite suffering from a heart attack and undergoing a double heart bypass operation just four months before, Fiennes joined Stroud in 2003 to complete seven marathons in seven days on seven continents in the Land Rover 7x7x7 Challenge for the British Heart Foundation. “In retrospect I wouldn’t have done it. I wouldn’t do it again. It was Mike Stroud’s idea”.Their series of marathons was as follows:

26 October – Race 1: Patagonia - South America

27 October – Race 2: Falkland Islands - “Antarctica”

28 October – Race 3: Sydney - Australia

29 October – Race 4: Singapore - Asia

30 October – Race 5: London - Europe

31 October – Race 6: Cairo - Africa

1 November – Race 7: New York - North America

Originally Fiennes had planned to run the first marathon on King George Island, Antarctica. The second marathon would then have taken place in Santiago, Chile. However, bad weather and aeroplane engine trouble caused him to change his plans, running the South American segment in southern Patagonia first and then hopping to the Falklands as a substitute for the Antarctic leg.

Speaking after the event, Fiennes said the Singapore Marathon had been by far the most difficult because of high humidity and pollution. He also said his cardiac surgeon had approved the marathons, providing his heart-rate did not exceed 130 beats per minute. Fiennes later said that he forgot to pack his heart-rate monitor, and therefore did not know how fast his heart was beating.

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Eric Cartman of South Park has committed 42 crimes, including Murder, Cannabilism, Unlicensed Surgery and Terrorism

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